INSURANCE giant Standard Life has reported a strong start to the year with corporate pension sales up 85 per cent and long-term savings by 25 per cent.

Corporate business rose 85 per cent to £559 million in the three months to March 31 which was well ahead of analysts forecasts of £311 million.

The 46 new pension schemes the Edinburgh company attracted cover 14,000 people.

The bulk of the pension gains came from a handful of large contracts with individual pension inflows down slightly on a year ago to £553 million from £566million.

Group sales of long-term savings products rose 25 per cent to £5.8 billion compared with £4.6 billion a year earlier, with net inflows up 29 per cent to £1.3 billion.

However, total net inflows were down on a year ago at £1.7 billion compared with £2.3billion last year though due to market levels remaining largely unchanged since the year end, assets under administration rose to £198.4 billion from £196.8billion posted at the end of December.

David Nish, chief executive, said: "We have made a good start to 2011. Strong sales across our long-term savings business are evidence that our market-leading products and platforms are performing well.

"We had a busy first quarter with the launch of several new propositions, including Lifelens, our innovative employee pensions, savings and benefits portal, and the relaunch of an enhanced Adviserzone, our support platform for financial advisers.

"Our corporate business had a strong start to the year with 46 new schemes won, bringing in a total of 14,000 new employees.

"Our programme of transformation and investment is on track, building our market-leading investment propositions by deploying best-in-class technology, and preparing our business to take full advantage of the fundamental regulatory changes that will take place next year.

Standard Life's share price has risen by more than 20 per cent since Nish was appointed last year, though it remains below the 2006 flotation price of 230 pence.

Nish said following his appointment the insurer would invest heavily in new products and technology, and £201 million was spent on this programme in 2010.

His strategy forms part of a wider plan to move away from traditional insurance policies which are require high capital holdings into savings and investment products.

Standard Life expects to spend a similar sum this year as part of a three-year overall investment programme which ends in 2013.

The groups share price dropped 10 per cent between it posting full-year results in early March and today's first quarter update amid concerns this investment programme was holding back cash generation.

However the group's long term incentive plan suggests an annual profit growth of between 15 and 24 per cent.